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Grad Rates Rise Despite Tougher Standards

Grad Rates Rise Despite Tougher Standards

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Friday, April 12, 2013

New York State has tightened graduation requirements over the past several years, yet recently released data posted on the Herkimer and Oneida Counties Community Indicators website shows graduation rates have held steady or slightly increased.

Since a push toward higher standards began in the mid-1990s, the state tightened graduation requirements twice: first requiring all students to pass 5 Regents exams, then increasing the minimum score to pass from 55 to 65. In the last several years, as the 65 minimum score was applied to more and more tests, the graduation rate in Herkimer County increased a few points to 77% and in Oneida held steady at 78%. Rates were up in 14 of 26 school districts between 2005 and 2011, and four districts had double-digit increases.

At the same time, the federal government has gotten tougher about how states are to calculate graduation rates. Starting with the class of 2010, schools had to include every student in their building for even one day in their graduation cohort – the previous threshold had been 5 months. That means schools are held accountable for those students – those who moved or transferred don’t count against them, but missing students are considered dropouts.

A comparison of state graduation rates by Education Week found that New York has made significant gains. From 1999 to 2009, our state had the second highest increase in graduation rates in the nation, gaining nearly 20 percentage points.

Yet state policymakers are revisiting the question of what a diploma is worth. Prompted in part by low college graduation rates, the state Board of Regents took a second look at the Regents exams and decided the 65 threshold wasn’t high enough to ensure post-secondary success. In addition to graduation rates, the state now reports a second benchmark of high school success: the proportion of students earning scores of at least 75 on the Regents English exam and 80 on Regents math. Far fewer students meet this standard, just 35% of the class of 2011 statewide.

The state plans to change its tests to better measure college and career readiness, but the Regents acknowledge that process will take time. And they are considering other changes too, most significantly dropping one of the 5 required Regents exams (Global History and Geography, which has the highest failure rate) and allowing students to instead graduate by passing a career and technical assessment or a second math or science exam.

The overall goal is to create multiple pathways to a diploma, including ones that lead more directly from high school to work, community college or additional technical education outside of a four-year college. A 2011 Harvard Graduate School of Education report Pathways to Prosperity argues that our nation’s focus on “college for all” has not only been unsuccessful but is also poorly matched to the current and future job market. The economy has many opportunities for technically skilled high school graduates with some post-secondary education or training than for aimless bachelor’s degree holders. In 2018, forecasters project that 36% of all jobs will require a high school diploma or less, 30% will require some post-secondary education, and 33% will require at least a bachelor’s – hardly data that supports the “college for all” mantra.

The Pathways report argues for much more vocational education in our system, closely linked to employers with lots of work-based learning opportunities, not only to better prepare students for the job market they face but also to hold their interest in school. Students who can see how learning connects to a future job in a field they find interesting get more excited about school.

Learn more about the education levels of Herkimer and Oneida residents.